How is paying your brother to come and fix something which means he has to travel a long way comparable to enquiring if someone in the local area would mind popping Down and doing a job which presumably would not take very long? Bloody hell I wouldn't like to ask you for a favour! I bet plumbers are outraged at all these do gooders depriving them of work. I lifted a washing machine up a flight of stairs for my mum's business last week, should I have paid her for my time?